Only the Dead Can Tell

by Alex Gray

  The current investigation into the slave trade, as Maggie had called it, was claiming the bulk of his time. Somewhere in his city a man allegedly named Max was operating a gang that might comprise illegal immigrants as well as local hired thugs, and he had several undercover officers searching out the likeliest places where they might be found. So far these men and women had little to report other than a few notions that there were some Asian workers in the back kitchens of restaurants in and around Glasgow whose immigration papers were less than satisfactory. He was feeling the pressure from the immigration authorities, of course, despite having explained the delicate situation of trying to trap the men they were after. Eventually, if the surveillance turned up the right people, there would be a large number of illegals detained and possibly returned to their homeland. The political climate was difficult in the world they lived in, liberal sympathies vying with the fear of terrorism. But most of the young men and women who would be leaving these shores had come seeking genuine work, in the belief that Scotland would be their ever-after paradise.

  Then there were the others, often with criminal records back in their own countries, who had arrived to find a new place to exploit these hopeful young folk, robbing them of their freedom as well as their hopes and dreams.

  A knock at the door disturbed his thoughts.

  ‘Sir,’ DCI Niall Cameron entered the room, ‘just had a call from DC Newton,’ he said, a small smile tugging at his mouth that Lorimer recognised as good news. Molly Newton was one of their best undercover operatives, an unremarkable-looking young woman in uniform but one who could alter her appearance chameleon-like for any situation. Right now she was trawling several employment agencies on the pretext of finding work as a manicurist.

  ‘Right?’ Lorimer clasped then unclasped his hands.

  ‘She thinks she’s found a place in Hope Street. Two floors up above a print workshop.’

  ‘So it’s what we suspected. Same scenario as in Aberdeen. They’re hiding in plain sight for the most part.’

  Cameron nodded his agreement. ‘Molly reported that there are several girls that look as though they could do with a better night’s sleep, if you get my understanding. And one of them is quite new, a Slovakian girl.’

  ‘Any names?’

  ‘Not yet. She’s hoping that they take her on by this afternoon. Molly had an interview and they wanted to know if she needed digs or had her own accommodation. They also asked if she had a valid passport.’

  Lorimer frowned. ‘Sounds odd. Why would they do that?’

  ‘Think DC Newton must have decided to fake an accent,’ Cameron laughed. ‘Making them think she was from Eastern Europe is my bet. You know what she’s like.’

  Lorimer nodded. Newton had specialised in languages before joining the police and was fluent in several.

  ‘What’s her cover name?’

  ‘The passport she’s using has the name Sasha Beltacha.’

  ‘Okay, let’s see if this is one of the places we should know about then we can take it from there. I guess we will be having a spate of new manicures amongst the female officers this weekend?’

  Cameron grinned. ‘Only those that are on the team, sir. Molly is very careful to keep a low profile.’

  Lorimer’s face was thoughtful once his DCI had left the room. Things had been moving very slowly since the Aberdeen raid but perhaps this was the beginning of the breakthrough that they needed. Peter Guilford was still languishing in the big new hospital not far from the police station but should he awaken and be fit to talk, Lorimer wanted to be at his bedside, asking questions about the mysterious Max and just how much Guilford had known about the use that had been made of his vehicles. Was the man a killer? Had he crossed that line by stabbing his wife to death? Or had he already spent time operating in that shadowy land where life was cheap and violence an everyday occurrence?

  The first thing he noticed was the smell. A hint of disinfectant.

  Peter blinked, feeling a gritty sensation under his eyelids, seeing the pale walls split between sunlight and shadow.

  There was a rhythmic sound coming from his left and he turned his head a fraction to see a monitor with bright lights illuminated on its screen.

  The perspex mask felt stiff across his face, and for a moment he was aware of just his own breath coming and going, his chest rising and falling.

  If he lay very still then the figure in the chair might not notice that he was awake, her head partly obscured by a glossy magazine she was reading. The cover was familiar. Didn’t Cynthia keep these sorts of magazines at the office?

  Cynthia.

  He blinked again, remembering how she had sounded the last time he had spoken to her before . . . before what? Guilford felt a change in his chest. A feeling of tension, his breath coming in gasps.

  ‘Nurse!’

  He heard the cry as the woman dropped her magazine and then there was the sound of footsteps and a second person by his bedside, hands feeling for his wrist.

  ‘It’s all right, Mr Guilford, everything’s all right,’ the nurse soothed. ‘Doctor will be here shortly.’

  Then, as she came closer he saw her face; those clear grey eyes looking down on him, a sweet smile as the nurse opened her mouth to speak.

  ‘Welcome back to the world,’ she said softly, then gave his arm a reassuring pat.

  Rosie’s working day ended at last as she shut down her computer and leaned back with a sigh. Two post-mortems dealt with and reports written up as well as the beginning of staff appraisals, something she was determined to carry out thoroughly before her maternity leave began. She licked her lips, wishing not for the first time that she could head home to a large glass of chilled Chablis, but the resulting heartburn wasn’t worth it and besides, she valued her unborn child too much to take any risks with his health.

  She smiled as one hand circled her belly fondly. A wee boy, she was sure of it. A glance at the clock on her office wall told her that she had time to cross the city and find Dr Jane Loughman. Come at the end of my surgery, the woman had texted back after Rosie had sent a text to ask when would be a suitable time to meet.

  She flipped over the in notice to out as she left the building, a mandatory requirement for all pathologists to ensure that staff could call on them as and when an incident required their presence at a scene of crime. Happily she was not on call this evening but a really big emergency could negate any of that, as she knew from experience.

  The journey across the city was slow, rush-hour traffic making her drive at a stop-start pace. At last she turned the Audi off the slip road and headed towards Pollokshields and the surgery where Jane Loughman was waiting for her.

  The car park was half full as Rosie arrived and she hoped that the remaining cars were those for staff and not lingering patients. However, she saw three people still sitting in the waiting room as she lumbered forwards to the reception desk.

  ‘Yes, can I help you?’ A tired-looking woman in her late fifties stood behind the Perspex screen, regarding Rosie with a sigh, eyes settling on the swelling beneath her maternity dress.

  ‘I’m here to see Dr Loughman—’ Rosie began.

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Rosie Fergusson.’

  The woman frowned at her between glances at her computer screen.

  ‘You aren’t down for an appointment and antenatal isn’t till next week.’ The woman scowled.

  ‘I’m not here as a patient,’ Rosie explained and rummaged in her bag. ‘Here,’ she said, handing her card to the receptionist. ‘Dr Rosie Fergusson.’

  ‘Oh.’ The woman’s face brightened as she read the pathologist’s details. ‘Sorry, I just thought . . . ’ Her gaze fell onto Rosie’s bump. ‘Sorry. I’ll see when she’s finished, shall I?’ Then she bustled off to leave Rosie standing, looking across at the remaining patients and hoping fervently that none of them were expecting to see Dorothy Guilford’s GP.

  The woman reappeared and smiled at Rosie. ‘Just take a seat, please.
She’s with her last patient of the day. Says she shouldn’t be long.’

  Rosie sat down, aware of the glances directed her way. A pregnant lady aroused curiosity, perhaps even sympathy on this warm June day.

  One by one two other patients were called, the third sitting determinedly behind his newspaper.

  Then a door opened, an elderly woman emerged and immediately the man folded his paper, striding to her side.

  ‘Okay, Mum?’ he asked, and Rosie watched as the old lady smiled nervously and nodded. There was a story there, she thought, reading the patient’s body language. Had she not wished her son to accompany her into the doctor’s surgery, fearing some bad news?

  ‘Dr Fergusson?’ Jane Loughman was there, standing in the doorway. ‘Won’t you come in?’ she asked. Rosie pulled herself up and lumbered slowly towards the surgery door.

  ‘You look tired,’ Dr Loughman began, glancing across the desk at Rosie. ‘Glass of water?’

  ‘Thanks. It’s been a long day. I’ll be glad to pack away my scalpels and take a few months off,’ Rosie admitted.

  As the doctor turned to fetch the water, Rosie bit her lip. How easily she had succumbed to the desire to spill all of her woes to this woman. It was a natural reaction, she supposed, to become like a patient, defer to the professional across the desk. But she was the GP’s equal in this situation, something she must remember.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, breathing a sigh of relief after taking a long draught of the cold water. ‘Now, I must say I am curious to know what you wanted to talk to me about.’

  ‘Well, Dorothy Guilford, of course,’ Jane Loughman replied, a slight frown between her eyes as though Rosie might have forgotten.

  ‘There was something you wanted me to know, though,’ Rosie pressed. ‘Something that wasn’t in her medical notes, perhaps?’

  Jane Loughman nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s often hard to put some things into words when describing a patient. Dorothy was . . . ’ She broke off and stared to one side, considering. ‘She was a very strange woman,’ she concluded at last. ‘I’d only known her for a few years and even I began to wonder about her mental capacity. She was a real hypochondriac. Always imagining that something was seriously wrong with her. And that was despite no family history of terrible diseases.’

  ‘She was attention-seeking?’

  ‘Definitely. Though there were the genuine injuries, of course.’ Jane Loughman shook her head. ‘Made me feel guilty whenever she had that broken arm or a badly bruised eye. But if you had been here to see her then . . . ’

  Rosie saw the woman’s face flush. ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘Oh, it isn’t something you can easily write down in medical notes. It was her attitude.’ The doctor sighed again. ‘It’s hard to explain. She’d come in looking like the typical browbeaten wife, dowdily dressed, bent over as though she expected someone to give her a slap, and then there would be a sort of triumphant look in her eye, as though she revelled in being injured.’

  ‘My husband’s a psychologist. Professor Brightman. I think he would be able to say a good deal more about Mrs Guilford.’

  ‘I’m sure he would,’ Jane Loughman replied, raising her eyebrows slightly at the name. Solomon Brightman was well known in both academic and medical circles these days, his books on the vagaries of the human condition having attracted a good deal of media attention.

  ‘So, you’re really Mrs Brightman, then? We both kept our maiden names for professional reasons. I may be Dr Loughman to my patients but my married name is McDougall.’

  ‘It helps to maintain one’s identity as much as anything,’ Rosie remarked.

  ‘Well, I have more than one reason to keep the name I qualified with,’ Jane began. ‘You see, Dorothy Guilford was a patient here long before I joined the practice. It was my father-in-law who treated her for years, well before her marriage to Guilford. I wanted to keep a little distance from Dad. Never does to let folk think it is all nepotism.’ She made a face and Rosie wondered if the doctor had in fact been brought into the practice because of that very relationship.

  ‘Anyway, I thought you might want to talk to him, see a little more of the sort of person Dorothy really was.’

  ‘Well, yes, I would. Is he local to the area?’

  ‘He lives with us,’ Jane told her. ‘He’s long retired, plays golf when his rheumatism allows and lectures us both on how the medical profession’s gone to the dogs!’ She gave a rueful smile then laughed. ‘My husband is an orthopaedic surgeon,’ she said. ‘We listen to all of Dad’s rants and tell ourselves that life really wasn’t better in his day. But maybe it was,’ she sighed. ‘Ten minutes for each patient and home visits only in emergencies nowadays. I ask you!’

  ‘So you think he would like to talk about Dorothy Guilford?’

  Jane Loughman smiled. ‘I know he would. He asked me to invite you for tea. Would you like to come back with me just now?’

  Rosie thought for a moment. Abby was off for a swimming lesson with Solly and wouldn’t be back for at least another hour.

  ‘Okay. Let me text my husband to let him know when I’ll be home.’

  ‘Good. We’re not far away,’ Jane told her. ‘Springkell Gardens. Just beside Maxwell Park.’

  Rosie nodded. It was a short walk from there to St Andrew’s Drive and the big house where she had first seen the body of Dorothy Guilford. As she rose to leave she was conscious of the weight of the baby within her and suddenly Jane Loughman was by her side, a friendly hand on her elbow, a concerned look on her face.

  ‘Are you sure you’re up to this, Dr Fergusson?’

  Donald John McDougall was a man in his late seventies, a thatch of thick white hair above his tanned forehead and a pair of faded blue eyes that looked out shrewdly from beneath bristling brows. Though he leaned on a stick, the hands that clutched it were large and strong, more like the hands of a farmer or a craftsman despite being flecked with age-spots and thickened at the joints from rheumatism.

  He gazed up at the sky, watching the mackerel clouds against a pale blue that betokened more fine weather in the days ahead. As an island boy he had learned early to tell the weather from the signs around him, though these days there was no sea to watch or faraway horizon on which to gaze. Several trips back to Islay each summer dealt with the yearning to see his home again but mostly Donald John was content to live here in the city with his son and daughter-in-law.

  The old man turned at the sound of a car door closing and then he stood still, hearing a second slight noise. So, they had both arrived, then? Jane and that pathologist lass. Well, he’d be interested to see what she was like, this Dr Fergusson he’d heard so much about.

  She was heavily pregnant, that was his initial impression, his years of medical experience making him look at her closely, noting the smudged mascara and the sloping shoulders that told him this woman was tired and ready for a decent rest. So why was she here? That very fact was interesting and told Donald John that the case of Dorothy Guilford’s death was of more importance to the pathologist than any routine post-mortem.

  *

  ‘Dr Fergusson, please meet my father-in-law, Dr McDougall,’ Jane said by way of introduction.

  ‘Donald John, please.’ The old man smiled at Rosie. ‘My medical days are long gone,’ he said, a twitch of a smile on his mouth as he drew a cynical look from his daughter-in-law. ‘Please come into the conservatory. It’s cooler than you might think at this time of day,’ he continued, leading the way through the house.

  ‘I’ll stick the kettle on. Tea? Coffee?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Too early for a wee malt? Aye, well, a pot of tea please, m’dear,’ Dr McDougall replied, chuckling at the face that Jane had pulled at the mention of whisky.

  ‘Oh, just a glass of water for me,’ Rosie said, stopping for a moment to glance through a doorway at a large open-plan kitchen in shades of grey and white. It was scrupulously tidy, a contrast to her own kitchen where Abby’s toys were frequently strewn
around and the fridge door covered in drawings from nursery. No kids, she thought to herself. Then: what a shame, as she remembered the pain of childlessness her friends the Lorimers had endured over the years.

  ‘Here, take this chair, you’ll find it gives you a decent support,’ Donald John told Rosie, ushering her towards a deeply padded rocking chair with patchwork cushions arranged artfully on their points.

  ‘Take off your shoes if you want to, lass,’ he murmured, leaning forward and giving Rosie a sympathetic grin. ‘Nobody will mind.’ He cocked his head in the direction of the kitchen.

  ‘Thanks,’ Rosie replied, grateful to slip off her shoes and flex her toes.

  ‘Now,’ the old man began, ‘you did the PM on Dorothy, that’s right?’

  ‘Correct. I was present at the initial scene and examined her body before it was taken to the mortuary,’ Rosie replied. Then she hesitated.

  ‘What?’ A pair of intent blue eyes met hers. ‘What did you find when you were in that house?’

  ‘Her hands were grasping the weapon that killed her,’ Rosie told him. ‘And they’d stiffened up a lot.’

  ‘Cadaveric spasm, you think?’

  Rosie nodded. ‘That was my conclusion at the time and still is. And I also concluded that there was a higher probability that the deceased had taken her own life than that a second person had been responsible for inflicting the fatal wound.’ Rosie never took her eyes off the old doctor as she spoke, aware of his rapt attention.